The Loony Bin
(
loonies@bloodaxe.com
)
Wed, 2 Sep 1998 10:22:20 +0100
The Loony Bin - http://loonies.net800.co.uk/
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Hiya People...
Here's the third part of Alan's thoughts for the day...
Wishes & Dreams...
- ANDREA
xx
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*** THE LOONY BIN ***
*** loonies@bloodaxe.com ***
*** Archive: http://loonies.net800.co.uk/ ***
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*******************Internet Goddess********************
**********************ANDROMEDA************************
------- Forwarded foolishness follows -------
Place the rock within easy gazing distance of the computer. When
totally baffled, stuck or dismayed, gaze at the rock. Try to
remember that, like the rock, the computer is functioning
perfectly. You're the one with the problem.
- Doug Clapp, Infoworld, V5 N*30, July 25, 1983
It's strange to reflect that electronic digital computers were
invented to replace women. [Rows of WACs, or in Britain WRENs,
each punching keys on a desk calculator, each computing her tiny
task of some large computing problem.] Stranger still to realize
that, for some (male) programmers, the replacement seems to have
succeeded beyond expectations. If this paragraph has nothing to
do with you, please take no offense. But if you recognize
yourself in this picture, take a break. Log off. Shut down, Talk
to people.
- Michael Swaine, Swaine's Flames Dr Dobbs' Journal Jan 89
Never trust a man who can count to 1023 on his fingers
We have here the latest in primitive technology.
Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the
bodies of those people I had to kill because they pissed me off.
If we remove the crash from racing, we remove the test of
courage, and then we might as well go play golf.
- Dave Despain
Our need for artificial intelligence is so great mainly because
the natural variety is in such short supply.
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not
certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to
reality.
- Albert Einstein
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that
heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but
"That's funny ..."
-Isaac Asimov
USA Today has come out with a new survey - apparently, three out
of every four people make up 75% of the population.
... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in
terror, and you would not have been informed.
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up.
When I die, I want to go quietly in my sleep, like my
grandfather. Not screaming like the other people in his car.
There are two rules to success in life:
1. Don't tell people everything you know.
I am a creationist; I refuse to believe that I could have
evolved from humans.
I would like to help you out. Which way did you come in?
I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for
hours.
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?
I must've seen it in a USENET posting; that's sort of like
hearsay evidence from Richard Nixon...
- Blair Houghton
If addiction is judged by how long a dumb animal will sit
pressing a lever to get a 'fix' of something, to its own
detriment, then I would conclude that netnews is far more
addictive than cocaine.
- Rob Stampfli
Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a
million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare.
- Blair Houghton
The meaning of life: Life is anything that dies when you stomp
on it.
- Zippy the Pinhead
Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future
scientific advances.
- Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube and
father of television.
Desert racing is like an all day plane crash.
- Parnelli Jones
USER ERROR: replace user and press any key to continue.
Computer possessed? Try DEVICE=C:\EXOR.SYS
Have you heard about the new Cray? It's so fast, it executes an
infinite loop in 6 seconds.
Imagine that the Cray computer company decides to make a
personal computer. It has a 750 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of
RAM, 1500 gigabytes of disk storage, a screen resolution of
2048x2048 pixels, relies entirely on voice recognition for
input, fits in your shirt pocket, and costs $300. What's the
first question that the computer community asks?
"Is it PC compatible?"
Asking whether machines can think is like asking whether
submarines can swim.
If a train station is where the train stops, what is a work
station?
There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third
one works.
It turned out that the worm exploited three or four different
holes in the system. From this, and the fact that we were able
to capture and examine some of the source code, we realized that
we were dealing with someone very sharp, probably not someone
here on campus.
- Dr. Richard LeBlanc, associate professor of ICS, was
quoted in "The Technique," Georgia Tech's newspaper,
that November (after the computer worm hit the Internet)
The Met office is now using fax machines to give local
authorities early warning of severe weather. The Hampshire
emergency planning office said: "Rather than having to rely on
telephones, for instance, where lines are at risk in bad
weather, we are encouraging the wider use of fax machines."
When I was a boy of 14 my father was so ignorant I could hardly
stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was
astonished at how much the old man had learned in 7 years.
When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,' I am always tempted
to ask, 'Compared to what?'
- Sydney J. Harris, "Majority of One"
Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been
forgotten.
- B.F. Skinner "Education in 1984", New Scientist, 21 May 1964
I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals; I'm a vegetarian
because I hate plants.
- Whitney A. Brown
You don't sew with a fork, so I see no reason to eat with
knitting needles.
- Miss Piggy, on eating Chinese food
The beauty of mechanical problems is that they are often visible
to the naked and untrained eye. If white smoke is rising from a
disk drive, that is probably where the problem lies (unless your
disk drive has just elected the new Pope).
- John Bear, Computer Wimp
Imitation of nature is bad engineering. For centuries inventors
tried to fly by emulating birds, and they have killed themselves
uselessly...You see, Mother Nature has never developed the
Boeing 747. Why not? Because Nature didn't need anything that
would fly at 700 mph at 40,000 feet: how would such an animal
feed itself?...If you take Man as a model and test of artificial
intelligence, you're making the same mistake as the old
inventors flapping their wings. You don't realize that Mother
Nature has never needed an intelligent animal and accordingly,
_has never bothered to develop one._ So when an intelligent
entity is finally built, it will have evolved on principles
different from those of Man's mind, and its level of
intelligence will certainly not be measured by the fact that it
can beat some chess champion or appear to carry on a
conversation in English.
- Anonymous, in Jacques Vallee's _The Network Revolution_
Entropy isn't what it used to be.
- anonymous
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: "I'm
from the government and I'm here to help."
- Ronald Reagan
I race cars, play tennis, and fondle women, BUT!...I have
weekends off, and I am my own boss.
- Arthur Bach (Dudley Moore) in the movie "Arthur"
There's no such thing as portable software, only software that
has been ported.
I do not suggest that you should not have an open mind,
particularly as you approach college. But don't keep your mind
so open that your brains fall out.
- William J. Bennett, Gonzaga College High School 1987
I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two
thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a
society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard
University.
- William F. Buckley, Jr., Rumbles
Why is American beer served cold? So you can tell it from urine.
- David Moulton
Why is U.S. Beer like having s_x in a canoe?
Because it's f_ck_ng near water. (I didn't say that)
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen
and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a
vital ingredient in beer.
- Dave Barry
My mom said she learned how to swim. Someone took her out in the
lake and threw her off the boat. That's how she learned how to
swim. I said, 'Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to
swim.'
- Paula Poundstone
Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant?
In my day, we couldn't afford shoes, so we went barefoot. In the
winter we had to wrap our feet with barbed wire for traction.
In my day, we didn't have dogs or cats. All I had was Silver
Beauty, my beloved paper clip.
In my day, we didn't have Strom Thurmond. Oh, wait. Yes we
did...
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Guns don't kill people, postal workers do.
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